The following pieces are part of a body of work that actually began in the late 50’s when I was studying with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design in Chicago. Callahan's wonderful images of streetcar, electric, telephone lines, and Siskind's abstractions still permeate my consciousness. That was "nature" for a kid growing up back of the stockyards. The experience of the Institute of Design, Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, is difficult to fully explain. Don’t get me wrong these pieces, in my view go much further than those early beginnings. For years I have been intrigued by the possibility of the litho, the high contrast image, the translation of retinal images to photographic images and the exploration of the artifacts of our culture.

Part B of this series centers around more traditional photography, the Chicago trees start digital with soft focus, camera movement and light.

Other influences have influenced my thinking. The desert landscapes of Frederick Sommer, the elegant plant forms of Karl Blossfeldt, the 8x10 landscapes of Emit Gowin and a little volume by Paul Klee, that describes like nothing else I have ever seen, the qualities of line. I remember experiencing an epiphany through the drawing exercises we did in the “Visual Fundamentals” class. At first we drew with conventional tools. It was when we had to draw with shards of glass, twigs, cardboard, string, and other found objects that line came alive. Now the digital age has arrived and so the experiments begin again. Now I draw with photoshop. Now the technical problems are different. It would not be an exageration to say that they have been 46 years in the making. It's time to read King Lear again.
John Grzywacz-Gray